Ronald Howard came by his acting talents naturally as he was the son of the Scarlet Pimpernel (the great Leslie Howard himself) who starred in the classics THE PETRIFIED FOREST along with Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis and GONE WITH THE WIND starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. In addition to Pimpernel, that is,
Young Ron (in addition to an appearance as a hypnotist in the Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce outing THE WOMAN IN GREEN and his stint on American television as Sherlock Holmes played Will Scarlett in Richard Greene's famous Robin Hood series (Richard we met as Sir Henry Baskerville in the first Rathbone/Bruce pairing about that cursed dog which Sir Henry describes in the novel as "the PET story of the family."
(Puns, Conan Doyle HAD 'em.)'''
And he had many other film and television roles. Look him up.
Just remember THIS is the Ronald Howard who WASN'T on HAPPY DAYS.
H. Marion Crawford did all those Fu Manchu movies in the 1960d with the late Sir Christopher Lee (and, occasionally, Richard Greene) playing Dr. Petrie (the Watson-like companion of Nayland Smith in the first three Sax Rohmer novels).
He was the grandson of author F, Marion Crawford who was the man behind such classic ghost stories as "The Screaming Skull". "The Upper Berth" and "For the Blood is the Life,"

Next to M. R. James perhaps the best writer of creepy stories in short form we ever had. Sadly, his output in that direction was all too limited. But the, he had an Italian Villa to maintain.
https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/07/ee/02/99/villa-crawford.jpg

Holmes thwarts a man he put in prison for murder who swears to kill him at his trial. The ending is a bit quick, and leaves out a secondary plot thread.

Otherwise, not bad. The main actors are good.

I always like to watch some old black and white TV episodes & movies around Christmas time, and if they feature a bit of snow then so much the better!

Of course a good cast and interesting story help too, and this one certainly has both.

I can't believe this series was never shown on television in Britain until 2006! I'm so glad I haven't seen it before, because I now have the rest of the episodes to look forward to. Great actors playing Holmes and Watson, really well cast. Although I had not previously heard of them, I have become an instant fan.

Highly recommended, although it would be nice to get a version with a slightly higher bitrate!

... How did she know how big the little door on his cell door was so as to fit in JUST perfectly?

Hmmmmm.

A wonderful episode.